NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/

On the morning of Sunday 15th January 2023, CMHASD member Honor Wheeler captured this absolutely stunning image of the Sun.  As you can see it was very active and still is!  Details of how Honor acquired her brilliant image are on the photo. 

 

The information below is taken from the website Spaceweather.com

Picture above shows the Sun on 15th January 2023 – taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory with the Sun spots labelled.

”’…I can’t remember having seen so many sunspots together; indeed, the sunspot number is high. If solar activity continues at this pace for the rest of January, the monthly sunspot number will reach a 20-year high. And Solar Maximum is still ~2 years away. Contrary to predictions, Cycle 25 is shaping up to be a good one, after all.

 

17th Jan 2023

”NAKED-EYE SUNSPOT: One of the biggest sunspots in years (AR3190) is crossing the solar disk–and you can see it with the naked eye. “Be sure to use safe solar glasses to protect your eyes,” says Bum-Suk Yeom of Iksan, South Korea. “I tried it myself today, and I could see the sunspot clearly.” 

As shown in Yeom’s infographic, the sunspot is four times wider than Earth. It’s twice as big as any other spot on the sun, visible to the naked eye, and a magnificent target for backyard solar telescopes.

Best of all, it’s about to explode. AR3190 has an unstable ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Any eruptuions will be geoeffective because the sunspot is almost directly facing Earth.” ”